With the help of Solitary Watch, Tamms Year Ten, and other advocacy organizations, Photo Requests from Solitary has reached out to men and women held in solitary confinement in state prisons in California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. We sent each of them a letter explaining the project and a form to fill out to make their request.

Solitary confinement (which can also be called Restricted Housing, Special Housing, Administrative Segregation, or Disciplinary or Punitive Segregation) means living confined to a small cell for 22 to 24 hours a day. They may leave to be escorted, in shackles, to the shower or to exercise alone in concrete pen or a fenced-in cage. They may not be allowed phone calls, contact visits, congregate religious services, or any other contact or communal activity. Solitary confinement cells generally measure from 6 × 9 to 8 × 10 feet, smaller than the average parking space. Most have solid metal doors, with a slot for passing in meals and communicating with prison staff and medical and mental health personnel. Within these cells, people are in a state of enforced idleness, without work, education, programming, or social activity. Many are banned from having televisions, radios, art supplies, and even reading materials. The isolation and sensory deprivation of prolonged solitary confinement has been shown to cause lasting psychological damage in many who endure it. Effects of solitary can include hallucinations, paranoia, panic, despair, psychosis, self-mutilation, and increased risk of suicide.

We do not ask—and rarely know—why people have been placed in solitary, or the crime for which they were convicted to be put in prison. All people held in solitary are eligible to request photos from PRFS. In general, people are sent to solitary not by a judge or jury, but solely at the discretion of prison staff. In many prisons and jails, solitary confinement has become a control strategy of first resort, although it has never been proven to reduce prison violence. Incarcerated men and women can be placed in complete isolation for months or years not only for violent acts, but for possessing contraband (including too many pencils or postage stamps), testing positive for drug use, ignoring orders, or using profanity. In some states, anyone who is believed to belong to a prison gang can be placed in solitary indefinitely. Other people end up in solitary because they have untreated mental illnesses, are children in need of “protection,” are LGBTQ, are people of color, are Muslim, have unpopular political beliefs, or report rape or abuse by prison officials. An estimated 80,000 men, women, and children are in solitary confinement in U.S. prisons on any given day. They may remain there for weeks, months, years, or decades.

We will make prints of photographs submitted and send them to the people who requested them, in accordance with prison rules regarding size and any other restrictions. Photos are generally also posted on this website. Photos have been shown in exhibitions in several states, featured in media stories, and will be used as part of future exhibits. Because there are limits on the number of photographs people in solitary confinement are allowed to have, as well as the capacity of our site, we may not be able to send or display photos that do not fulfill the project’s goal (see About PRFS), or that are too similar to other submitted images. Photo exhibitions are curated with different themes and audiences in mind. PRFS reserves the right to reject any photos we believe to be libelous threatening, or discriminatory toward any person or group. All other submissions are deeply appreciated and will become part of the permanent archive of Photo Requests from Solitary.

First, choose a request from this website that you would like to fill. Make sure to carefully read the long version of the request so you can meet all the specifications. Although your interpretation will be a vital part of the process, we do not send or display images that don’t very substantially fulfill the request as written. You can use the Search Requests feature to filter by state, or to find unfilled requests. (You are welcome to submit an additional photo for a request that has been filled before, but we hope you will choose an unfilled request.) The Save to My Requests button allows you to make and email a list of Saved Requests, but once you leave the site, it will disappear. Once you have made a choice, then simply take or make your photo in the highest resolution possible for you. Because some requests require images of things that don’t exist, or that can’t be orchestrated, it is fine to use any other tools or methods of image-making to best fill the request (such as Photoshop, drawing, collage, etc.) The goal of this project is to take or make original images for people in solitary. We do not send or publish copyrighted images unless the request specifically requires it.

When you are ready to send in your photo, please begin by preparing your image file. Since we often use the photos in exhibitions/public programs and may want to include your photo, please submit a high-resolution image, in tiff or jpg format at 300 dpi and at least 10 inches on the long edge. Please only submit original images. If the request requires a found or copyrighted image, instead email the image to info@photorequestsfromsolitary.org to consult with us before uploading. In the file name, include the request number and your name as you would like it to appear on the website and in any exhibits for which your photo might be selected. We may also share just your first name (not your last name) with the person in prison who made the request. An email address is required, but will not be shared with anyone except the PRFS project staff. Please read the submission terms before submitting your photo. (By submitting, you are agreeing to these terms.) If you have any comments or questions, feel free to contact us at submit@photorequestsfromsolitary.org. PRFS is run by volunteers, and it takes time to review, send, and post the images. We will get back to you fairly soon, but your patience is appreciated.

Solitary Watch, the organization that hosts the PRFS project, has a website devoted to information about the use of solitary confinement. You may want to start with Solitary Watch’s own list of FAQs. To read stories by people in solitary confinement, click on Voices from Solitary, or check out our new book.

Advocacy organizations and grassroots campaigns around the country are working to end the use of prolonged solitary confinement beyond 15 days—the limit recommended by the United Nations—and to ban it altogether for children, people with mental illness, and other vulnerable individuals. They are pursuing these goals through public education, legislation, lawsuits, community activism, and pilot projects promoting alternatives to solitary inside prisons and jails. To get involved, check out this list of organizations. You can also help by donating to support the work of Solitary Watch, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, or any of the other groups on the list.

By submitting your photograph or other work of art (image) to Photo Requests from Solitary, you agree to the following terms:

We will send the image you have submitted to the person who requested it. While you are making an image for a person in solitary confinement, by participating in the project you also grant Photo Requests from Solitary the the rights to distribute your image, unchanged, for non-commercial purposes with your credit, as explained in the Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives. Possible uses of your image include, but are not limited to, the following: Your image may be exhibited to a wider audience online, or at any museum, gallery, legislative assembly hall, house of worship or other space. Your image may also be reproduced in newspapers, magazines, videos, exhibition catalogues, or books by or about the PRFS project and copied on flyers, poster, or postcards. It will be posted on the web at the PRFS site and may be posted on other sites. It may be used as a premium in fundraising campaigns by PRFS or Solitary Watch. The image may also be exhibited or used by our project sponsor and partners, including Solitary Watch, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, or other organizations with campaigns to end prolonged solitary confinement.

All rights to use the image granted above are non-exclusive. You will retain perpetual copyright to your own artwork and can use it for any purpose you wish. Unless you have otherwise instructed us, your name as provided on the submission for will be included as a credit with any and all public uses of your image. Your first name only, as provided to us, may also be shared with the person in prison who requested the image. No other information will be shared without your written authorization.

We are grateful for the role you are playing in this project. We will assume all costs associated with transmitting your image to the person who requested it, and for the exhibitions we organize and other uses of your image. Because we are a nonprofit, volunteer project, we cannot offer payment or other compensation for the photos. By submitting your photo, you understand that you: 1) are responsible for all costs and liabilities that may arise in the making of the requested artwork(s), and 2) waive compensation for fulfilling a request, or from the use of your image in any of the ways described above. Any proceeds from the above uses will be used for nonprofit purposes to support and expand the PRFS project. Thank you for being part of Photo Requests from Solitary!